Chapter 390: Military Reform
Ying Yuan in the tent thought over and over again, and finally decided to reform the military.
He muttered to himself, "Cao Cao and his men want to reform the military in order to enhance the power of the Qin Empire."
"This time, I neither oppose nor agree with it. Instead, I will make some minor adjustments to the military reform, specifically the details."
"As the saying goes, details determine success or failure. This time, I will definitely succeed in defeating the country!"
After repeated failures, he is no longer trying to cheer himself up.
But you are brainwashing yourself.
I always fantasize about being able to succeed once.
Afterwards, he gradually made modifications based on Zhuge Liang's suggestions.
"Don't they want to cut the army? Then I'll cut it in front of them. Cutting only 100,000 is a small fuss. If we're going to cut, let's just cut 300,000!"
"Isn't there money in the treasury? I will take out a large portion of the money from the treasury and use it all to resettle the people who have been laid off."
"Zhuge Liang wanted to unify the army, and I followed his wishes by dividing it into five major camps: east, west, north, south, and center."
"Besides that, I will let the treacherous minister serve as the commander of the five major military camps. Coincidentally, the five kings of different surnames in the Great Qin will come in handy."
"Having a commander alone is not enough. I will appoint five generals to assist the five kings in commanding the five camps respectively. Naturally, these five generals must also be filled by treacherous ministers."
"I think the four generals are good, but we are still short of a candidate for the position of Grand General. Who should we appoint?"
Ying Yuan thought of someone, and suddenly his eyes lit up, and he continued to murmur:
"Bai Qi, how could I have forgotten this man? Although I know very little about Bai Qi and cannot say for sure whether he is a traitor, I can be absolutely sure that he is a fierce general!"
"In past history, if this man was truly loyal to the Qin State, then why did King Zhaoxiang of Qin order Bai Qi's death? Perhaps this man truly had some second thoughts, but history hasn't recorded them. If that's the case, then Bai Qi should be one of the five generals."
His understanding of history mostly comes from novels or unofficial histories, and he has basically never read official history.
Therefore, he never thought that King Zhaoxiang of Qin sentenced Bai Qi to death not because of his disloyalty.
It was because Bai Qi was too murderous, which caused dissatisfaction among various countries. In addition, there were some nobles within the Qin State, and even officials and prime ministers, who disliked Bai Qi.
What's more, Bai Qi at that time had already wanted to retire and did not want to be in charge of military affairs anymore, which angered King Zhaoxiang of Qin.
And various reasons.
As a result, King Zhaoxiang of Qin had to order Bai Qi to be executed.
However, when he heard that King Zhaoxiang of Qin wanted to sentence him to death, he drank poisoned wine or committed suicide on the spot without saying a word.
This shows his loyalty!
But Ying Yuan didn’t know!
So he became paranoid and thought that Bai Qi might have had second thoughts.
"In this way, the five commanders and five generals will all be appointed. Most of them are treacherous ministers and will definitely bring about a devastating disaster to my country."
"I'm already looking forward to it. Besides that, I'm going to raise the soldiers' salaries and other things by a whole new level."
"If the treasury is still not empty, I will jump off Mount Tai!"
Ying Yuan was secretly delighted.
Nowadays, ordinary soldiers of the Qin Dynasty receive about one to two qian of silver as salary every month.
That is, one penny in peacetime and two pennies or more in wartime.
As for the different salaries of soldiers in various countries, they basically ranged from 400 to 800 coins. In comparison, the amount of silver Qin gave to its soldiers was definitely a lot.
Although Ying Yuan had increased the soldiers' salaries before, that was only for certain troops and was not implemented on a full scale.
The silver and money system adopted by the Qin Dynasty in this world is that one thousand wen is equal to one qian of silver.
Ten coins are equal to one tael of silver.
Ten taels of silver are equal to one gold.
After a little consideration, Ying Yuan decided to increase the salary of each soldier to four coins of silver.
During wartime, just give eight cents of silver.
It doubled directly.
As for military pay, it is definitely the most expensive among all the countries, no doubt about it.
"I'm afraid the monthly pay for the soldiers alone would be enough to bankrupt the Ministry of Revenue. It won't be long before the treasury is completely depleted."
When Ying Yuan thought of this, he couldn't stop smiling.
At present, the total amount of silver in the national treasury is about 1.3 billion taels of silver.
The total tax revenue of the Qin Dynasty each year is between 350 million and 400 million taels of silver.
If the tax revenue from Jin is included, the total amount will exceed 500 million.
The army was cut by 300,000, and 500,000 troops were sent to Wu State and 200,000 troops were sent to Jin State.
It is as high as millions.
In other words, the current internal military strength of the Qin State is about 1.7 million.
Adding to that the troops of the kings of different surnames and the governors of various places, the total number is about 1.9 million.
In this way, the strength of each of the five major barracks is about 380,000 troops.
The monthly food and salary expenditure for just one battalion of troops was as high as 150,000 or even 160,000 taels of silver.
Of course, this is still calculated based on the monthly salary of ordinary soldiers.
After all, in a barracks, there are positions such as lieutenant general, lieutenant general and even sergeant commander.
It must be more than 160,000 taels of silver.
Let’s take 200,000 taels as an example.
The total monthly salary of the five major camps is one million taels of silver.
The expenditure is nearly 12 million taels of silver a year.
During the war, it was about 24 million taels of silver.
This is not worth mentioning at all compared to the growing financial resources of the Qin treasury.
My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It will be even more exciting later!
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